Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Mesut Ozil has been sent on a wee holiday in order to "wise the fuck up" according to The Daily Mirror. Good for him

Mr Ozil has been criticised for .... all of his performances recently, even though I'd say he's actually started trying recently, and Arsene Wenger has decided to let him have a few extra days off so he's rested for the rest of Arsenal's season. Ozil has played almost every minute he possibly could have since joining Arsenal oh by the way did you hear that he cost £42.5 MILLION OH MY GOD ERMAGERD!

It's no wonder Ozil looks absolutely fucked most of the time, he never gets a chance to stop running around and whenever he gets the ball he's got noone except that mad shagger Giroud up front. I get the feeling that since Wenger decided to splash out for the first time in twenty years on a player he's squeezing every last ounce of usage out of him that he can, like when you buy a new t-shirt and want to wear it all the time, or when you get a new girlfriend and aren't bored of listening to her talk for the first three weeks or something because boobs

I remember earlier this week when I said that Olympiakos would probably beat Manchester United in Athens and all my Man United fan friends said "LOL GOOD ONE"

In only a few months, David Moyes has become my favourite Man United manager of all time. Not only has he made them hilariously shit, but he's also helped them lose a lot of games. Those two things might be related actually. Tonight, a team from a league only slightly more pointless than the SPFL (it's more pointless cos the guy that owns Olympiakos also owns the league, in Scotland I think only 75% of the owners own Celtic) managed to beat David Moyes' brave men 2-0.

Roy Keane was so seething during and after the match that he became the most Irish person in the world of all time. Even Adrian Chiles' post-match cuntistry couldn't distract from the awesomeness of the result and Man United fans everywhere must surely be starting to understand what it is the rest of us actual football fans have had to go through for the last 28 years.

HOW DOES IT FEEL

HOW DOES IT FEEEELLL???

The other good thing about the result is that people may start to realise that the Premier League is totally balls now. It's the beginning of the end my friends

I've managed to go almost a whole week without writing anything again, so sorry about that. What I'm not sorry for is how delicious it feels to beat Celtic. For Aberdeen, I mean. I'm obviously neutral

Before Tuesday night's game against Celtic, the Glasgow side hadn't conceded a goal in 18 years which is why when Johnny Hayes punted a ball into the corner I shouted out loud "hooray". Fraser Forster then went an impressive three minutes without conceding a goal before Adam Rooney headed in a second and then some other guy for Expensive United FC scored a 'consolation'.

I have forgotten to mention that Celtic were down to ten men for horrifically fouling Peter Pawlett by the time the first goal went in, but this is irrelevant because normally members of the Old Firm have 14 men on the pitch at any given time. If you include "money" then they have 19 players.

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

If I could sum up why I hate Rangers so much in one newspaper headline, I'd probably choose this one from The Scotsman.

McCoist: Rangers may need £30m to return to top

I literally groaned out loud when I read this one. According to Ally, who until recently was on £800,000 a year to manage a Scottish Third Division side with an impossibly large annual player wage budget something like 80 times what the rest of the Scottish Premier League teams have combined, Rangers just aren't able to compete unless they invest about £30million on new players. That's almost exactly £30million more than the rest of the teams in the SPFL. Combined.

This is the same Sevco United who are currently 137.5 points ahead of their nearest rival in their current division. Let's look at the almost exciting table from the real league in Scotland this season:

Now to be fair, Celtic do have a fairly strong grip on the SPFL at the moment but if you cast your minds back a few seasons you will recall the period of time that Rangers used to spend more money than was previously available on earth to help cheat their way to ruining the league and leaving it in the scandalous state that it is now. Tore Andre Flo cost £12million once. Think about that.

Aberdeen's first team was assembled for pretty much £0 with the most of the players either youth graduates or having signed on a free, and as you can see in the above table, are pushing to finish second. £30million?!! Don't worry though chaps, Super Ally wants to come in and ruin the whole fucking league again like The Old Firm already did. Hooray!

It’s difficult to put a figure on how much investment we need. But if you lose in the region of £30m worth of players as we did because of administration – players like Nikica Jelavic, Steven Davis, Allan McGregor, Steven Whittaker and all those boys – then I would think that standard of player needs to get replaced.

“I’m not saying £30m is the exact figure, but that’s roughly what we’ve lost. Some will argue it might be more than that, some might say a little bit less.“But my point is that you can’t lose that, not replace it and then expect to compete at the top level.”

I for one can't wait until the day The Rangers go bust again and all of the creatures that follow them have to support a local team instead. The amount of cunts from Paisley I've met who support Rangers instead of St Mirren is absolutely atrocious - there's an actual team on your door step, you bellends.

Until Ibrox is attached to a rocket and sent to its new home on the moon or an abandoned nuclear power plant island, those of us who were starting to enjoy this new look Scottish football league can remain clear that we are not safe from the days of The Old Firm continuing to try and ruin it for everyone else. They're like the dick heads at the party who come in and change the music from NOFX to whatever dance/R&B song is number 1 that week. That's not even R&B! The Who was R&B! ARGHGHGHHGGHGHGHGHGHHGGHGHGHGGHGHGHHGHGHGH

Sexual hound-dog Oliver Giroud looked to have been caught out by some girl in The Sun a week ago or so, as she claimed that he invited her to his hotel room only HOURS before a match against Crystal Palace. Presumably FOR A ROMP! Giroud denied it. BUT THEN

The main problem with this is not that Giroud is actually married but that he was SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING. OH OLLIE HOW COULD YOU?! He actually got away with it for a while and told Wenger that she was talking bollocks. Unfortunately the power of the camera phone was too much for him as The Sun on Sunday helped him discover:

Giroud later issued a series of apologies on Twitter basically saying "woops" and "I think my wife might be annoyed about this" while the girl in question says she's "glad that he told his wife". The story also says that he didn't bang her, but the state of his knob in those pants looks exactly like he's just finished "using" it, plus the fact she came round at 1am and left at 3am, combined with him yawning in the picture points towards him jizzing and telling her to fuck off.

For legal reasons I'd like to point out that I'm making all of that bit up.

Anyway, he's going to be fined by Arsene Wenger for lying to him, which is actually the worst crime of all. Didn't he stop to think about Arsene's feelings? Maybe he did and that's why he didn't bang the girl. The thought of Arsene Wenger's longing eyes is enough to kill even the most potent of boners

I've always said that the only thing that could make football even better is if it somehow incorporated many of the elements that make wrestling ace. Now my prayers may have been answered

According to a rumour that started somewhere online, the WWE chairman has been making noises about buying Newcastle. This is from winnersports.co.uk, which I'm sure is a real reliable source when it comes to genuine football news so this is pretty much a done deal.

He sees England as an untapped market for his wrestling empire. He has even indicated he could put on wrestling bouts at St James’s Park.

I can't wait until it's time for a substitution and all the lights go out around St James Park.

"Uh oh what's going on here?!" say the commentators, but they know. Pyrotechnics shoot up into the sky and from behind a walkway of fire Shola Ameobi prepares to enter the field to the tune of 'Sleep Now In The Fire'.

"It's Shola Ameobi!", they screech with delight, and as Gourcuff jogs off, two giant flames fire out from the ground. He runs on to rapturous applause, but then FROM NOWHERE Lee Cattermole batters a steel chair off his head.

"OH NO HE DIDN'T" they yell, but he totally did. "What's this now?!" and then The Rock and The Undertaker come out - we didn't even know they were pals!!!! A tag team?!! Cattermole runs for his life but bounces off the ropes that now surround the pitch and straight back towards The Undertaker. "TOMBSTONE!!" and he flops like a fish on its belly all around the centre circle.

"It's all over now!" shouts JR, but what's this?!! The Rock has thrown his arm band into the crowd! With one eye brow raised, he begins his run towards the ropes on one sides and bounds back towards the lifeless Cattermole. He reaches the other end of the pitch, springs back off the ropes OH NO HE DOESN'T!!! AMEOBI HAS GRABBED HIM!! SUPLEX OVER THE ROPES INTO THE CROWD..... HE'S DONE IT!!! THE ROCK IS OUT!

Ameobi returns to the centre of the pitch as 'Highway To Hell' rings out around the stadium

Tuesday, 18 February 2014

*BONG* Ray Wilkins found safe and well at training ground in Peru following psychotic Fulham meltdown *BONG*

Not really, it's a coach in Peru helping train some players in giant red pants. Or a nappy. Regardless, Fulham have replaced Rene Meulensteen, Alan Curbishley and Ray Wilkins with a guy called Felix Magath, or at least that's what most of the papers think has happened because Fulham haven't actually confirmed anything.

Wilkins still thought he had a job on Saturday, no-one really knows what Curbishley's been doing and Meulensteen was just starting to get a chance to play a team that didn't have an average age of 52. Felix Magath used to manage Bayern Munich apparently and is well known for 'demanding unparalleled physical fitness' from his players. That should be fun for Damien Duff. Until last week that meant getting out of bed sober

I accidentally just had a week off from writing FitbaThatba articles and it was very nice, thanks for asking. Luckily for me my new favourite football story of all time happened and although I'm late to the party, I still find it funny days later. This guy is 17

Lazio have said that they will sue anyone who continues to question Joseph Minala's age and say that because he has had a very hard childhood his face looks slightly more weathered than you might think. That's if by weathered you mean 'werthers originals' because that's what he gives his grandkids when they come round.

There are rumours that the Cameroonian told a Senegalese website he is actually 41 but as I've said, Lazio and his agent have both strongly denied it. If I was a betting man, on somewhere totally random like 888sport football betting for example, I'd be unsure as where to place him on the age scale. If I wasn't acutely aware that Lazio plan to sue people who question it publicly, I'd say that he's 41. Luckily I'm aware that they said that so I know he's 17. Let's look at some more pictures

And my favourite of all. The piece de resistance (which is actually one of the wars he fought in)

Are you fucking kidding me? Imagine being 16 and lining up next to this monster in a junior football match. Imagine it. The the only explanation I have for a 17 year old's face looking this old is that he drank from the wrong grail but it wasn't quite as deadly as the one that other guy chose and only went half way to killing him.

There have been quite a few stories about African footballers having questionable ages on their passports over the years. A Portsmouth physio once described Kanu's muscle structure as befitting of a man in his mid fifties. At the time he was 30. A Daily Telegraph journalist told me that Michael Essien is actually 40 - explaining his incredible drop in ability in the last few years - and basically there's just a few who are at it because it makes them shit loads of money and if you can get away with it then go for it. Fair play to you.

Joseph Minala clearly isn't one of these examples because Lazio have said so. And besides which, the player himself is tired and bored of these accusations seeing as he's had to put up with them for about 15 years now

Sunday, 9 February 2014

Arsenal players are in trouble today after forgetting to turn up for a scheduled match with Liverpool on Saturday afternoon.

I didn't make this, it's from a football forum. I think

Fans of the club were confused when Arsene Wenger didn't appear to realise that he hadn't put any players on the pitch, and later annoyed and then depressed as Liverpool absolutely Pardewed the team at the top of the league.

Despite several thousand fans making the journey North, Mesut Özil didn't and was found passed out on the floor of his bedroom after realising that he gets all 9 seasons of The Office US on Netflix after changing the DNS settings on his Apple TV. Ho ho ho I jest. Actually he did play but he was fucking shite.

source: whoscored.com

So bad was Özil, in fact, that he scored the lowest rating of any Premier League outfield player for the entire season on WhoScored.com. 4.3. There were times in the game that I actually wondered whether he knows that he's allowed to run, or try, if he wants to, but instead he just floats around lamenting Giroud's inability to score 30 yarders every week like Ronaldo.

Most people checking the scores on their phone probably thought Liverpool got lucky and the 90 minutes was over when they saw it was 4-0, but actually the match was in about the 30th minute by the time England's resident hubcap thieves had found themselves ahead by that score.

Wenger admitted that it might have been slightly his fault that his players were so bad, but across the board they were awful. And to counter that, Liverpool were absolutely magic. Michael Owen was very excited during his co-commentary and refused to rule out Liverpool for winning the league and also said that Daniel Sturridge is one of the best strikers in the world (lol). Ahh well. His commentary might be biased, but at least it's shit.

They are only six points off I guess. Brendan Rodgers was very happy with the performance and if there's one thing he needs it's more reasons to look smug

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Fulham were struggling for results not so long ago and fired under-performing Martin Jol to replace him with his mate, Rene Meulensteen. I mean mate like friend, not like in the animal kingdom

Back then, Fulham were only winning some of their games and since Meulensteen once touched Alex Ferguson - who as we all know is made from magic - it was assumed that he would lead the London club to glory. Or alternatively, mid table. Instead, the failing Dutchman has masterminded a direct plummet to the bottom of the Premier league table with absolutely no end of losing in sight. They even lost to Sheffield United, who I thought had given up after that whole Carlos Tevez thing.

Anyway now apparently Alan Curbishley is set to replace the former Manchester United coach because he has special 'avoiding the drop' powers. These are the same powers shared by Alex Mcleish, Steve Bruce and any other manager guaranteed to bore you to tears within only a few days of managing your football club. But by god he gets results, you stupid chief.

If Fulham do get relegated the only people who will care are Damien Duff, Uri Gellar and Mohamed Al Fayed, who will be so distraught by the fortunes of his former club that he will inflate to 300 times his normal size and terrorise the city of London

You have all been warned. And no doubt the tube drivers will be on strike then too. Are they unaware that computers exist? It's about the stupidest strike I've ever heard. Why is it people who go on strike look like they've never once thought about how businesses actually work. It's not some guy in an office going 'oh I think I'd like to throw some money away at random people, like that overweight man there' who suddenly changes his mind and yells 'TAKE THEIR MONEY AWAY, SUFFOCATE THEM FINANCIALLY QUICKLY I NEED TO EAT ALL OF THE MONEY'.

In most of Europe the trains are all run remotely. I'd just go and learn how to do that instead.

Michael Laudrup and his delicious hair were fired yesterday, even though all of the best teams in the world wanted to hire him five months ago.

Amongst the many theories as to why he was sacked are 'he couldn't be arsed', 'Wales is absolutely shite', 'he went on holiday' and 'where is Michu'. I can fully understand why one as handsome as he probably isn't too fussed about getting binned from a stupid little club in a made up country, especially when he's already won a trophy with them. Mirror Sport said:

So what? Swansea won't get relegated and they won't finish 8th. Who could be arsed? This is like when you play Pro Evo or Champ Manager and you're out of all the cups and all you have to do now is draw a series of boring games. Even worse, it's in real life so you can't just go on holiday and return at the end. Or you can, I guess, but then you get fired, as Laudrup has just proved.

Swansea players are understanably upset, and no more than captain Garry Monk who has already leapt at the chance to replace the outgoing manager. You stay classy.

Speaking of classy, Jonjo Shelvey looks like someone has carved a sad face into a cue ball

Joe Kinnear has left Newcastle because why was he there in the first place

I'm pretty sure not even Joe Kinnear knew what his job was, which is just one of the many reasons that Newcastle decided to get rid of him. Having overseen two transfer windows with Newcastle in which he managed to successfully complete two loan signings and sell their best player, Kinnear also managed to piss off the rest of the playing staff by pronouncing their names as though he had just landed on planet earth and was being taught words for the first time.

It even gets better. The Mirror, who Simon Bird (Kinnear's greatest enemy) writes for, said this:

A serial loser of his mobile phone, which was often found with dozens of missed calls from agents, Kinnear’s unsuitability for the role of top level deal maker soon became apparent to Ashley.

I can't think of Joe Kinnear in any other light than an idiotic one. I can only imagine him walking up and down the corridors at St James Park pretending to be on the phone to Ronaldo's agent and rolling his eyes at colleagues, until one day his phone goes off half way through the 'conversation' and it's Amazon.com trying to deliver several tonnes of ice cream to his house

David Beckham announced plans to launch a new MLS franchise in Miami in a press conference today. The press conference was in Miami. Oh you don't know?!

Yes, Miami: famous for its party lifestyle, beaches and aggressive illegal hispanic immigrants is set to be the next team in America's fast growing soccer league. Beckham didn't set a starting date for the team or even give it a name, but at the end of the press conference some guys ran on the stage in blue scarves that said MLS Miami, so I assume it's called MLS Miami

Luckily for DBecks, his old pal Will Smith from Fresh Prince will be on hand to show him where all the booty tang will be slutting it up and let him know which place has the best wings. Beckham was asked whether Alex Ferguson would be manager, to which he replied 'hell no' and then round-housed the question man in his face and then hit a freekick into the top corner against Greece.

At this point I think I'm obliged to make some jokes about Beckham being really stupid or something about the Spice Girls, but since it isn't 1998 anymore and I don't work for the Daily Mail I won't. Perhaps I should do some the war or racism? How about this:

I went to French self defence lessons the other day. They were going well until the instructor asked me to attack him, at which point he surrendered and hid behind a table

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Celtic will not be punished for a banner their supporters unveiled at a recent match. Before you ask, yes it has something to do with the IRA or some other bollocks. IT'S A FOOTBALL MATCH YOU TWATS

The giant H that you can see there in the lovely photo of Celtic's wonderful football loving crowd is not a good H. Not like Rimmer in Red Dwarf, or even a cool place for helicopters to land. Oh no. In fact:

The Maze Prison was used to house paramilitary prisoners and 10 Irish Republicans died in the H-Blocks' hunger strike in 1981.

But don't pretend like you didn't know that. When it comes to bringing up entirely irrelevant things from a football club's loosely linked past, Celtic are kings. This banner was unveiled against Aberdeen but the SPFL have decided that even though it is totally retarded and offensive, Celtic did everything they could to prevent it.

"The SPFL found that the banner was offensive and breached the SPFL's rules. However, Celtic FC were able to demonstrate that they had taken all reasonably practicable steps to prevent the banner being displayed at Celtic Park.

In Celtic's defence, the H was very small and only covered about 100 odd people for the large part of a two hour long event, so no wonder stewards weren't able to take it down before people started asking what it was, immediately after seeing it. In Neil Lennon's defence, he was probably waiting for a £5million new signing to make sure that banner was taken down in a slightly different manner to the last guy, while all the other clubs had to make do with not putting up stupid banners in the first place

Monday, 3 February 2014

David Moyes has entered the record books as not only my favourite Manchester United manager of all time, but also he really has entered the record books. As in he's broken records, not like he's 'entered them' Woody Allen style.

This weekend's defeat to Stoke was especially hilarious because Mark Hughes is absolutely terrible and almost definitely thinks that he masterminded the victory. You know everything is going against you when Hughes gets the upper hand, and it's even more clear when Charlie Adam manages to score not one, but TWO goals against you, especially when one is really, really good.

Occasionally I find out how old someone is and flat out don't believe it, but Charlie Adam is a month younger than me. I am older than Charlie Adam. He looks like someone assembled his head him from bits they found in a sausage factory. Some people say 'he must have had a tough paper round' but this guy looks like he still has a paper round in fucking Mordor.

Regardless, Manchester United still lost to Stoke despite having RVP, Rooney and Juan Mata up front. Their tactics appear to have come directly from Moyes' Sunday league 'Ideas Book'. I have acquired a top secret extract from that book:

Poor David Moyes. Not only is he subject of countless jokes by people on the internet, but he's now being given patronising support from his peers. And when I say peers I mean Mark Hughes:

David has been in the game a long time now, he knows how it works, but the thing with United is that they will give him time. He deserves time. He’s served his dues and he’s been given a fantastic opportunity at a great club to be really successful and I wish him well.

Receiving praise from Mark Hughes must be like losing a game of FIFA to a 12 year old or being told that the gig you just played was 'good' by the guy in the band that brought 50 skinhead Fred Perry bucket hat wearing mates to the pub to watch him gurn out songs that even the Stone Roses would have punched to death if they'd known they existed.

In the biggest footballing news of the weekend, Aberdeen successfully navigated their way to the Scottish League Cup Final by pummelling St Johnstone in to the ground. 4-0. FOUR NIL ALL GLORY TO THE GRANITE CITY

The mighty Dons opened the scoring in the third minute and despite the best efforts of the referee, managed to build on their lead with a further three. Which equals four. I couldn't even watch the game because I live in London and there were no streams but I listened to it on the radio, which makes me perfectly eligible to comment on the game. End to end stuff. Offside! Soccer!

Now we have to play Inverness Caledonian Thistle in a final probably held at either 'fake Ireland fc' or the 'Hun's dungeon' for the first chance of winning silverware that I've been genuinely conscious of since being born way back in 85. Playing Celtic in a cup final doesn't count as a genuine chance, btw.

Even the Daily Rangers were excited about it:

Amongst all the celebrations of the game, rather annoyingly, some morons amongst the phenomenal Dandies support threw a bunch of stuff, including coins, at Neil Lennon. And while yes, he is a colossal bellend, you shouldn't throw stuff at him as it will only make him stronger. Or because you're not supposed to. Either will do. He told the BBC:

"I don't want to take anything away from what is a great day for Aberdeen. I don't think that's fair and I can't apportion any blame to them.

"It's just a section of supporters who probably have had far too much to drink. I don't think it's sectarian either, by the way, I just think it's drink-fuelled and, yes, it is unacceptable."

What nonce of a journalist has tried to get a sectarian line out of him there? Now if I had been sat in seats near to Neil Lennon, I would have tried to wind him up. That's just going to happen. It would be like taking a tiny dog into a pub and telling me not to play with it. My line of attack would have been to yell 'Neeeeillllllll' over and over and over and over and over

Conversely, the neanderthal doughnut approach was to hurl coins at his face.

"I'm sitting in the directors' box and I'm actually with a lot of the Aberdeen staff." he said.

"I'm sitting next to Billy Brown and two of my own staff. You get the usual abuse, which is fine, you can live with that.

"But then I was aware that a coin flew past my head and actually hit an Aberdeen member of staff on the back.

It's a bit like when you're in a moving car and all of a sudden you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to open the door - you know you shouldn't do it but the urge is just ridiculous. It would be mad not to! The sensible people however don't do it because it would result in serious injury, but those of a slightly less.... sane disposition will gladly throw themselves out of a speeding vehicle if it means they have a chance of throwing juice at Neil Lennon. I'd just like to point out that I've never had an urge to throw a coin at anyone

"At half-time, the stewards moved us, which was fine, they were looking out for us. We moved to a row just in front of the press box.

"When Aberdeen scored the third goal, I don't know what it was, a drink of some sort, again it came flying over my head and missed me and landed in the press box and hit a couple of the journalists there."

It sounds like a cartoon version of Band of Brothers, except instead of a battalion of heroes surviving a mortar round in their dugout, Neil Lennon and his slimy crew had to evade some orcs hurling coca cola at them. The Celtic manager described the incident as 'unsavoury' which is coincidentally my least favourite kind of snack. Give me a cheese board any day.